Broken
by scgirl-317
Summary: "You took the world's best criminals—hitter, hacker, grifter, thief—you took us and you broke us." After they broke up, nothing was the same. For any of them.
1. Hitter

Title: Broken

Author: Morgan a.k.a. scgirl_317

Summary: "You took the world's best criminals—hitter, hacker, grifter, thief—you took us and you broke us." After they broke up, nothing was the same. For any of them.

Spoilers: 1.1 "The Nigerian Job", 1.3 "The Two Horse Job", 1.12 "The First David Job", 1.13 "The Second David Job", 2.1 "The Beantown Bailout Job"

Author's Note: Six months pass between the end of "The Second David Job" and "The Beantown Bailout Job".

* * *

**Hitter**

Eliot wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself. After working with Nathan for almost a year, the ex-insurance man's morals had started to rub off on the hitter. He had taken a few odd jobs since the team disbanded, but none of them had set quite right with him, and that unnerved him. So not knowing what else to do, he left the country. He found himself in Pakistan, and once again righting wrongs. The US government was doing some hinky stuff over there.

Eliot shook his head. "Hinky"? Hardison said hinky, but not Eliot. It was yet another indicator of how much the entire team had rubbed off on him. As much as he hated to admit it, he missed them. Not infrequently, he would find himself thinking about them, wondering what they were doing or wishing he had their backup on a job. He'd even check police reports, wondering if one of the crimes listed had been them. But they were very good at covering their tracks, and five months later, he had no idea where any of them were.

With a sigh, Eliot's mind returned to the present. There was no way he could stand by and do nothing while innocent people were dying. The fact that the American people had no idea what their government was doing in Pakistan only made things worse. But he would have to lay low for a while until things cooled off some over there. Helping the Pakistanis was a good idea, but it was a little much for one man. Even if that man was Eliot Spencer.

He decided that going back to the States was probably a good choice for now. He used one of his many aliases to buy a plane ticket to London, where he used his Air Marshal's badge to board a flight to Atlanta. A part of him considered going back to LA, but he knew that if he did that, he'd never be able to put that part of his life behind him. Staying on the opposite side of the country seemed like the smartest move.

Back on solid ground, Eliot found an apartment in Aiken, South Carolina—horse country where he could get a job that didn't involve hitting people. Somewhere where he wouldn't have to constantly watch for gang thugs, but also where folks wouldn't ask too many questions.

Two weeks back in America, he found an envelope taped to his door when he got back from a grocery run. Cautiously, he removed it and entered the apartment. He set the bags on the counter and opened the envelope slowly. Inside, he found a flyer for a production at a Boston theater with a sticky note taped to it.

"Please come, S."

Saying Sophie's acting stunk worse than a dead fish in August was probably being too kind, but at the moment Eliot didn't seem to care. Sophie had been like his sister, and he had missed her. With a smile, he began putting the food away so he could get ready.

He was going to the theater tonight.


	2. Hacker

**Hacker**

Hardison was bored.

It didn't take too long for him to get tired of sitting around. Before, if he didn't have anything to do, he would pull a job just for the heck of it. With Nathan, he almost always had something to do. Now that the team had disbanded, he had nothing to do.

It wasn't like he _had_ to work. With the money from their first job alone, he had enough to retire to a private island in the south Pacific, even after he played "Pimp My Space" in the offices that Sterling had made him blow up. (He would never forgive Sterling for that, by the way.)

No, Hardison just couldn't stand sitting still for very long. Nana had always told him "idle hands are the Devil's workshop", so he made sure he always had something to do. The fact that he was usually stealing money or information was minutiae.

So he hacked into the White House email accounts, just because he could. Nothing. Nothing even remotely interesting going on. No bribes, no blackmail, no illicit love affairs. Nothing. Well, unless you counted the emails going back and forth about Pakistan. That's some hinky stuff, man.

Hinky.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the web crawlers he had sent out almost immediately after the team split up. He knew they were smart enough to cover their tracks, but he knew their tricks. The crawlers were programmed to find any stories within certain parameters. If the team's jobs made the news (and he was certain they would at some point), he would find them.

Nothing again today. A lesser man would have given up after a few weeks, maybe even lasted a month. Hardison had been at it every day for six months. The only glimmer he had had was when the Hope Diamond had been stolen. But the gem miraculously reappeared two days later, and the story ended there. He knew it had to be Parker, but he also knew she was long gone by the time anyone discovered the diamond's return, let alone making the news. It was an incredibly inefficient method of searching, but he knew they were smart enough to lay low and not risk exposing themselves or their aliases. So all he could do was search for their work.

Sorting through one of his many email accounts, he found a piece of spam that seemed odd. It was a mailer for a Boston theater's production of "The Sound of Music". Odd, because he was back in Chicago. He looked closer, and almost fell out of his chair when he saw who was playing the starring role of Maria.

"Oh _heck_ no," he groaned. Sophie could only act when on a con. The few times he'd seen her acting were moments he would never get back in his life, and he wished he could erase the memories forever. And although he had never heard her sing, he was sure it would _not_ be good.

"Oh, what the heck," he muttered, clicking on the link to buy tickets online.

Hardison missed her—all of the team, really—and if getting to see her meant sitting through another painful performance, he'd do it.


	3. Grifter

**Grifter**

It seemed only natural to go back to acting. It was what she had been doing when Nathan found her. She had even briefly returned to it after the team broke up after the first "David" job. So when the team reluctantly went separate ways five months ago, Sophie made her way to Boston. She had done some acting at a theater there, and it was a town she knew. After a couple supporting roles, she landed the lead in "The Sound of Music."

Opening night was nearing dangerously close, and she was nervous. Not because of the acting, that she had absolute faith in. She was nervous because she wasn't sure if her plan would work. It had taken some doing, and if she had had Hardison's skills with a computer, she knew it would have been easier, but she had managed.

The first had been Hardison. She knew he took the time to go through spam, it being the only communication he had with several underworld contacts. The trick was trying to remember what email address to send the flyer to. It had been a shot in the dark, and she could only hope she got the right one.

Next had been Parker. The theft of the Hope Diamond may as well have been a blinking neon sign saying "Parker was here." Managing to get a couple days off from rehearsals, Sophie few to Paris, where she swiftly found the thief. Instead of making her presence known, Sophie simply slipped a flyer under Parker's door, adding a sticky note that said, "Ticket's at 'Will-Call,' S."

Eliot had probably been the hardest. The hitter could very easily be anywhere in the world. But she had a hunch, so she looked into it. She doubted he would go back to Kentucky, but would probably opt for a lower-profile area. It took some digging, and tracking that Hardison would have been proud of, but she eventually found Eliot working under one of his aliases in South Carolina.

So Sophie headed for Aiken; the apartment to hitter lived in was a far cry from the condo he'd had in LA. She taped a flyer for the show to his door with a brief note and left with no more indication she had ever been there. He would come if he could. You couldn't force the man to do anything he didn't want to do.

The only thing that disheartened her was her inability to find Nathan. Of all people, she had figured he would be the easiest. It was a week before opening night when, by freak coincidence, he happened to go to lunch at the café down the street from the theater that was frequented by actors. Nathan didn't see her, but she saw him. Knowing now where he was, Sophie managed to find his address and sent him a flyer from the theater.

Satisfied that she had done all she could, she threw herself into rehearsals. If the team was going to see her perform, she was going to make sure she did her best.


	4. Thief

**Thief**

Parker growled in frustration. She stood in the art gallery surrounded by priceless works of art that she could lift in her sleep, and she found herself unable to take them. Not due to any security measures or an inability to move them.

No, her frustration stemmed from the tiny little Nathan that had now taken up residence in her head. She could hear his voice telling her she was now one of the good guys, and her larcenous nature grudgingly took the back seat. However, that was not going to stop her from imagining how she would do it.

Only once in the months since the team split did Parker give in to her thieving ways. An exhibition of the Hope Diamond had been too much to resist. She spent weeks planning the take. She had everything planned to the second.

The heist went off without a hitch. Parker returned to the safe house where she had been staying as she made her plans. She pulled the gem out of her bag and placed it in a safe under the flooring. Pleased with herself, she got a bowl of Fruit Loops and sat listening to the police scanner.

That night was when things started going south. Parker couldn't sit still. Well, relatively speaking. Something just would not sit right. For a day she ignored it. Another day passed, and she started getting jumpy. Day three, and she couldn't take it any more.

If Nate were there, he would have told her to figure out what was causing her unease. So, she took his advice. She had been fine until she took the diamond.

Oh, yeah. That might be it.

She had been a good guy for long enough to make stealing for fun not as fun as it had been.

With a resigned sigh, she opened the safe and pulled the diamond out. Pocketing the stone, she trudged out to her car and drove back to the gallery where it had been on display. She easily slipped in and returned the gem to its case.

That had been last week. She left the art gallery, in a glum mood as usual. When she opened her apartment door, she found a flyer for a musical on the floor. She smiled when she saw the note. She had missed Sophie. Even though her acting stunk like a dead fish, it would be good to see her again.

Grin firmly in place, Parker grabbed her bag and locked up the apartment, leaving it until she would need it again. She booked a flight to Boston, looking forward to another awful performance.


End file.
